Mr Christian
ǺHLUND

Bureau member from January 2008 to
December 2009
Vice-Chair from January 2010 to
December 2012
Chair since January 2014

Christian Ahlund is the Executive Director of
International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC), an
umbrella organisation for a number of international
associations of judges, prosecutors and lawyers,
with the objective of resurrecting judicial systems
in post-conflict countries. ILAC was formed in 2002
and has its head-quarters in Stockholm. Its 36
member organisations represent more that three
million individuals world-wide. ILAC has initiated
legal reform activities in a number of countries,
e.g Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti and Liberia.
Ahlund is a senior partner of the Swedish law firm
Sju Advokater and a member of the Swedish Bar.

Since the mid ´80s Ahlund has had recurring
international assignments in the fields of human
rights and international law. During the second half
of the ´80s and early ´90s, Ahlund was a member of a
government commission, which advised the Swedish
Government on politically sensitive matters of
assistance to opposition groups in South Africa and
Central America. During this period he travelled
extensively in these regions. In 1990-1991 Ahlund
was part of an international team, appointed by the
International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, which
investigated the internecine violence in South
African townships.

During the latter half of the 1990´s, Ahlund´s main
field of activity became the Balkans, particularly
Bosnia-Hercegovina. In 1997, he was posted in
Sarajevo as Director General for Human Rights for
the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) Mission to Bosnia-Hercegovina, tasked
with monitoring the implementation of the human
rights aspects of the Dayton Agreement. In December
1999 he was appointed jointly by the Office of the
High Representative in Bosnia-Hercegovina and OSCE
to chair a commission of national and international
experts with the task of drafting legislation in the
fields of defamation and freedom of information. The
group´s law proposals were presented in March 2001
and have subsequently been transformed into law by
the Bosnian parliament. In his capacity as chair of
the Human Rights Commission of the Swedish Bar
Association 1998 -2003, Ahlund was engaged in
projects with the purpose of upgrading the bar
associations in Republika Srpska and Macedonia.

From 2003 to 2006, Ahlund chaired the Human Rights
Committee of the Human Rights Committee of CCBE (the
Council of Bars and Law Societies in the European
Union). In 2004, Ahlund received the International
Bar Association´s annual “Rule of Law Award”.
Ahlund has published articles in Swedish and
international press on human rights and
international law.